President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan inaugurated the largest mosque in the Balkans after meeting with his Albanian counterpart Bajram Begaj and Prime Minister Edi Rama in Tirana on Thursday, as he reiterated his call for standing up against Israel’s genocide and war crimes in Gaza.
“The Netanyahu administration has once again proved that it has no intention of establishing peace in the region by attacking Lebanon,” Erdoğan said, adding that it is a moral obligation for everyone to stand up against what he called “Israel’s state terrorism.”
The Grand Mosque of Tirana, also known as the Namazgah Mosque, is one of the largest in the Balkans.
Türkiye is a strategic partner of Albania and one of its largest investors, contributing to infrastructure and other sectors.
Construction of the new mosque was launched in 2015 with some 30 million euros ($34 million) from the Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet).
In addition to the four minarets, the Namazgah mosque has a central dome of 30 meters and the capacity to hold 8,000 people. It sits on a 10,000-square-meter parcel of land near Albania’s parliament, and the first floor includes a cultural center. It has a capacity to let 10,000 people pray.
The construction already had been completed for more than a year, but the inauguration was delayed because of Erdoğan’s concerns that the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), which was behind the failed coup attempt in 2016, would have influence over the mosque.
Under agreements reached with the local Albanian Muslim community, the Diyanet organization will have representation on the mosque’s governing board.
Türkiye says that FETÖ and its U.S.-based leader Fetullah Gülen orchestrated a failed coup, which left 251 people dead and nearly 2,200 wounded.
The site is near landmark Catholic and Orthodox cathedrals.
